> There is a huge difference between the rule of law in proper democracies ("Rechtsstaaten") and arbitrary political decisions in totalitarian states (such as R

> There is a huge difference between the rule of law in proper democracies ("Rechtsstaaten") and arbitrary political decisions in totalitarian states (such as Russia). I'm tempted to agree. However, I did raise a specific counter-example. In that case, a "proper democracy" (Mossadegh was democratically elected and presumably used entirely legal means to nationalize APOC assets), and then the long arms (CIA, MI6) of another set of "proper democracies?" undertook a violent coup to take back the assets. I'm not aware of how/whether those "long arms" interacted with the large system of checks and balances that you mentioned.